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Jonathan Tallant - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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a defence of lucretian Presentism
Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 2020Co-Authors: Jonathan Tallant, David IngramAbstract:ABSTRACTIn this paper, we defend Lucretian Presentism (‘Lucretianism’). Although the view faces many objections and has proven unpopular with presentists, we rehabilitate Lucretianism and argue tha...
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Presentism persistence and trans temporal dependence
Philosophical Studies, 2018Co-Authors: Jonathan TallantAbstract:My central thesis is that Presentism is incompatible with all of the main theories of persistence: endurance, exdurance (stage theory) and perdurance.
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Presentism Remains
Erkenntnis, 2017Co-Authors: Jonathan TallantAbstract:Here I examine some recent attempts to provide a new way of thinking about the philosophy of time that question the central role of ‘presentness’ within the definition of Presentism. The central concern raised by these critics turns on the intelligibility and theoretical usefulness of the term ‘is present’ (cf. Correia and Rosenkrantz in Thought 4:19–27, 2015; Deasy in Nous, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1111/nous.12109; Williamson in Modal logic as metaphysics, OUP, Oxford, 2013). My overarching aim is to at least challenge such concerns. I begin with arguments due to Deasy (Nous, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1111/nous.12109). Deasy develops a view that he calls ‘transientism’ and that he takes to be a well-motivated version of Presentism. I show that both this way of thinking about Presentism and the argument supposedly motivating it all fail. I then move to an argument due to Correia and Rosenkrantz (Thought 4:19–27, 2015). Correia and Rosenkrantz purport to show that Presentism can be salvaged without making recourse to the term ‘is present’. I demonstrate that their arguments fail. I then move on to a view, proposed and defended by Merricks (Truth and ontology, OUP, Oxford, 2007), Tallant (Erkenntnis 79:479–501, 2014), and Zimmerman (Philos Pap 25:115–126, 1996), and show that it has the wherewithal to meet the challenges raised by Williamson (Modal logic as metaphysics, OUP, Oxford, 2013) who, as noted above, raises genuine concerns about our capacity to define Presentism
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Presentism truthmaking and necessary connections
Theoria, 2015Co-Authors: Jonathan TallantAbstract:Ross Cameron puts forward a novel solution to the truthmaker problem facing Presentism. I claim that, by Cameron's own lights, the view is not in fact a presentist view at all, but rather requires us to endorse a form of Priority Presentism, whereby past objects are derivative and depend for their existence upon present objects. I argue that this view should be rejected.
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defining existence Presentism
Erkenntnis, 2014Co-Authors: Jonathan TallantAbstract:In this paper I argue in favor of a new definition of Presentism that I call ‘existence Presentism’ (EP). Typically, Presentism is defined as the thesis that ‘only present objects exist’, or ‘nothing exists that is non-present’. I assume these statements to be equivalent. I call these statements of Presentism ‘conventional Presentism’ (CP). First, in Sect. 2, I rehearse arguments due to Meyer (2005) that purport to show that Presentism is not adequately defined as CP. In Sects. 2.1–2.4 I show that considerations of the sort raised by Meyer infect attempts to define Presentism, due to Crisp (2004a, b), Stoneham (2009), Crisp (2005a) and Sider (2006). Thus the first half of the paper is constituted by a negative project that looks to show how extant definitions of Presentism fail. In the second half of the paper, I continue in the negative theme in Sect. 3, before laying out (EP) and demonstrating that it solves the problems faced by CP and offering explanations of how to make sense of certain key notions that lie at the heart of EP. I conclude that EP is preferable to CP.
Bradley Monton - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Presentism and the objection from being supervenience
Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 2007Co-Authors: Brian Kierland, Bradley MontonAbstract:In this paper, we show that Presentism—the view that the way things are is the way things presently are—is not undermined by the objection from being-supervenience. This objection claims, roughly, that Presentism has trouble accounting for the truth-value of past-tense claims. Our demonstration amounts to the articulation and defence of a novel version of Presentism. This is brute past Presentism, according to which the truth-value of past-tense claims is determined by the past understood as a fundamental aspect of reality different from things and how things are.
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chapter 14 Presentism and quantum gravity
Philosophy and Foundations of Physics, 2006Co-Authors: Bradley MontonAbstract:Abstract There is a philosophical tradition of arguing against Presentism, the thesis that only presently existing things exist, on the basis of its incompatibility with fundamental physics. I grant that Presentism is incompatible with special and general relativity, but argue that Presentism is not incompatible with quantum gravity, because there are some theories of quantum gravity that utilize a fixed foliation of spacetime. I reply to various objections to this defense of Presentism, and point out a flaw in Godel's modal argument for the ideality of time. This paper provides an interesting case study of the interplay between physics and philosophy.
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Presentism and quantum gravity
2001Co-Authors: Bradley MontonAbstract:There is a philosophical tradition of arguing against Presentism, the thesis that only presently existing things exist, on the basis of its incompatibility with fundamental physics. I grant that Presentism is incompatible with special and general relativity, but argue that Presentism is not incompatible with quantum gravity, because there are some theories of quantum gravity that utilize a fixed foliation of spacetime. I reply to various objections to this defense of Presentism, and point out a flaw in Godel’s modal argument for the ideality of time. This paper provides an interesting case study of the interplay between physics and philosophy.
Sven Rosenkranz - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Temporal existence and temporal location
Philosophical Studies, 2019Co-Authors: Fabrice Correia, Sven RosenkranzAbstract:We argue that sensitivity to the distinction between the tensed notion of being something and the tensed notion of being located at the present time serves as a good antidote to confusions in debates about time and existence, in particular in the debate about how to characterise Presentism, and saves us the trouble of going through unnecessary epicycles. Both notions are frequently expressed using the tensed verb ‘to exist’, making it systematically ambiguous. It is a commendable strategy to avoid using that verb altogether in these contexts and to use quantification and a location predicate instead.
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Presentism without presentness
Thought: A Journal of Philosophy, 2015Co-Authors: Fabrice Correia, Sven RosenkranzAbstract:We argue that Presentism, understood as a view about time and existence, can perspicuously be defined in opposition to all other familiar contenders without appeal to any notion of presentness or cognate notions such as concreteness. Given recent worries about the suitability of such notions to cut much metaphysical ice, this should be welcomed by Presentism's defenders. We also show that, irrespective of its sparse ideology, the proposed formulation forestalls any deviant interpretation at odds with the view it aims to capture.
Jiri Benovsky - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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The Present vs. the Specious Present
Review of Philosophy and Psychology, 2013Co-Authors: Jiri BenovskyAbstract:This article is concerned with the alleged incompatibility between Presentism and specious present theories of temporal experience. According to Presentism, the present time is instantaneous (or, near-instantaneous), while according to specious present theories, the specious present is temporally extended—therefore, it seems that there is no room in reality for the whole of a specious present, if Presentism is true. It seems then that one of the two claims—Presentism or the specious present theory—has to go. I shall argue that this kind of worries is mislead. Once we understand properly how our phenomenal experience as of passage and as of change, such as it is understood by specious present theorists, comes into being, the apparent phenomenologico-metaphysical conflict will disappear. In short, the mistake here is to presuppose that there is a link between phenomenology and metaphysics stronger than it actually is. Presentism is a metaphysical theory about what exists. Specious Presentism is a phenomenological theory about how things appear to us in experience. As we will see, the two claims are not in conflict, and are in fact entirely orthogonal.
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Presentism and persistence
Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 2009Co-Authors: Jiri BenovskyAbstract:In this paper, I examine various theories of persistence through time under Presentism. In Part I, I argue that both perdurantist views (namely, the worm view and the stage view) suffer, in combination with Presentism, from serious difficulties and should be rejected. In Part II, I discuss the presentist endurantist view, to see that it does avoid the difficulties of the perdurantist views, and consequently that it does work, but at a price that some may consider as being very high: its ontological commitments to platonic universals and to the substratum theory, that as we shall see follow from the combination of endurantism with Presentism, will perhaps not be to everyone's taste.
Samuel Baron - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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how to endure Presentism
Inquiry: Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines, 2019Co-Authors: Samuel BaronAbstract:ABSTRACTPresentism and endurantism are natural bedfellows: arguments have been mounted from endurantism to Presentism and vice versa. I generalise an argument against the compatibility between Presentism and endurantism offered recently by Tallant (forthcoming. “Presentism, Persistence and Trans-temporal Dependence.” Philosophical Studies). I then show how to reformulate endurantism so that it is compatible with Presentism. I demonstrate that this reformulated version of endurantism can do the same work with respect to the problem of temporary intrinsics as can standard definitions.
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the hard road to Presentism
Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 2014Co-Authors: Jamin Asay, Samuel BaronAbstract:It is a common criticism of Presentism – the view according to which only the present exists – that it errs against truthmaker theory. Recent attempts to resolve the truthmaker objection against Presentism proceed by restricting truthmaker maximalism (the view that all truths have truthmakers), maintaining that propositions concerning the past are not made true by anything, but are true nonetheless. Support for this view is typically garnered from the case for negative existential propositions, which some philosophers contend are exceptions to truthmaker maximalism. In this article, we argue that a ‘no truthmakers’ approach to the truthmaker objection is critically flawed.
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Presentism truth and supervenience
Ratio, 2013Co-Authors: Samuel BaronAbstract:Truthmaker theory is commonly thought to pose a challenge for Presentism. Presentism seems to lack the ontological and ideological resources required to adequately underwrite the truth of propositions concerning the past. That is because if Presentism is true, then the past does not exist. According to the standard response to this challenge, the truth of propositions concerning the past supervenes on surrogate entities that ‘stand proxy’ for past things. I argue that in order for the standard response to the truthmaker challenge to succeed these surrogate entities must stand in necessary connections to the past. I go on to argue that because the standard response is already committed to denying the existence of cross-temporal modal connections of this kind, by its own lights that response is in error.1
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Presentism and causation revisited
Philosophical Papers, 2012Co-Authors: Samuel BaronAbstract:Abstract One of the major difficulties facing Presentism is the problem of causation. In this paper, I propose a new solution to that problem, one that is compatible with intrinsic, fundamental causal relations. Accommodating relations of this kind is important because (i) according to David Lewis (2004), such relations are needed to account for causation in our world and worlds relevantly similar to our own, (ii) there is no other strategy currently available that successfully reconciles Presentism with relations of this kind and (iii) resolving the problem of causation by accommodating intrinsic, fundamental causal relations provides the presentist with a far more general solution to the problem of causation than those currently on offer.